


little clouds

by softlyspoken



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, Reunion 3.0 feels, for the robron gift exchange, just a lil more bittersweet and angsty because yk it's me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25608106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyspoken/pseuds/softlyspoken
Summary: Robert is released from prison. It all gets too much.
Relationships: Aaron Dingle/Robert Sugden
Comments: 5
Kudos: 56





	little clouds

[link to the moodboard on my tumblr](https://kellykadesperate.tumblr.com/post/625058269034053632/part-one-of-my-robron-engagement-gift-exchange-for)

* * *

Robert stands on the edge of the road, fingertips tapping gently against his hip to try and make the chaos rip through him in a gentler way. A way that he can stand. It doesn’t work, he knew it wouldn’t but for some reason he isn’t sure of, he walks forward and forward until he’s met with a sign and people he hasn’t seen for so long that something aches in his chest.

He’s there, his feet actually crack against the surface underneath him and it feels like something he remembers, something he doesn’t mind remembering until there’s faces. There’s one, the back of a head he’s not sure he could ever not know and then there’s a kid and then there’s eyes staring at him as she turns.

Robert sees what he sees and turns, almost darts away like his life genuinely depends on it. He runs back the way he came, until there’s an ache that drums in his chest telling him to slow down and to stop this wave of panic hitting him over and over again. He stops, he stops here because of course he would.

He’s where he is for what feels like a really long time. He settles, eyes flashing around as cars pass in their slowly and he just watches, unable to do anything but scan his over the makes of the cars and focus on what he knows about them. It keeps something ticking, ticking, ticking until he hears the sound of another car. It’s the _sound_ , he never knew it would be the sound of a car that would draw him back years and years and years.

But it does, and he panics. He panics so much because he doesn’t know how to do anything else when it comes to _this_.

Robert tips his head up, eyes flashing wildly onto what he knows is coming towards him. For a second, he’s so certain that absolutely nothing else matters in the whole world. There’s just this pounding in his head and an ache in his chest because there’s blue eyes.

There’s blue eyes and hands empty around his frame and everything disappears into the air as he finds himself on his knees and blue eyes dragging down to be beside him, opposite him, behind him. All at once. There’s this protection there that is pulled from the furthest part of the mind, this part of him remembers it. He remembers the feeling of a body this close to him, hands wrapped around him so hard and close that Robert can only lean in, press his face to soft fabric that feels like so much that he’s missed.

It feels like memories from a life time ago.

A life that isn’t his.

Eventually, the clouds seem to huddle together just like both of them are and rain pours down. Robert hears it, feels it hit him softly and then harder until there’s hands cupping at his face. Their wet, Robert jumps back slightly at how cold they feel against his face. Then there’s a smile, honest and so scared at the same time but Robert can’t look away.

“Let’s get out of the rain.” Aaron speaks. He opens his mouth and words come out and Robert’s the one he’s talking to.

It’s really real. It’s really him.

Robert follows him. Aaron followed him here so Robert follows him as they walk through the woods and not towards Aaron’s car because he couldn’t sit there. It’s a red car. Aaron has a red car now, but his eyes are still blue, and his hoodie is still black, so he follows him.

Robert sits on a log and shivers; his head is down and his heart thuds until there’s a hand against his knee and he jumps up again. For a second, he was lost in his mind and he forgot that he was here, and Aaron was here and he’s safe.

He’s safe.

It makes him look up, take Aaron in despite how scared he is.

Aaron’s hair is curled, finer, greying on the sides like he’s a proper middle-aged man.

Robert’s mind screams and he’s flooded with this realisation that Aaron’s changed, aged, matured in this way that can only disturb the image Robert’s held on to for so many years now.

“Why’d you run?” Aaron’s closer than he thought he would be. Robert thought of this moment, of this exact time, for so long and yet he never imagined Aaron would be so close to him like this.

Robert feels his heart tighten and Aaron’s hand is still holding his knee. “Didn’t know where else to go.”

“Home.” Aaron stammers the words out, he sounds like he’s crying, and Robert looks up and sees how red his face is, how anguished he looks by what he’s saying. Robert feels this swooping in his chest and it’s on instinct that he brings his head down until it touches Aaron’s.

It stops raining somewhere in the middle of Robert’s eyes closing against Aaron’s forehead and Aaron wrapping his arms so tightly around Robert that he can’t quite breathe. But it feels good. Robert doesn’t know how any of this is going to feel anything other than good right now.

Aaron pulls away, eyes red raw as he dips his head down and wobbles his chin as he looks at Robert’s hands, then up towards his arms. Robert pulls his jacket down, hides hits and knocks and things Aaron should never ever know about.

“Don’t hide.” Aaron whispers, his voice is barely there. It’s like he can’t speak right. The hand against Robert’s knee is clammy now and when he pulls it away Robert feels an emptiness that he’s grown accustom to. “Don’t Robert.”

Robert dips his head down and then up again when Aaron starts crying again.

“Please don’t cry over me.”

“No one knew where you _were_.” Aaron speaks clearer now, the rain has stopped, and he shudders, shows teeth as he bites at his lip and then breathes in. “Vic said she saw you, that you took one look at her and you ran.”

“You.” The word practically whispers through the air, sweeps softly and then picks up in volume as Aaron’s mouth drops and Robert has to look at him, see the wetness of his eyes and the redness to his cheeks. “I saw you, crossing the road. I just couldn’t do it.”

What happened was something Robert never thought would, his legs carried him there and then practically fell off as he took one look at this tiny place he called home for years and years and then saw the _person_ who was his home for so much longer.

Robert looks back at Aaron, sees that he looks more petrified than Robert feels which is something.

“Why?” Aaron’s eyes are so wide. He blinks, there’s a hand up towards his nose and he rubs back and forth. Robert stares at his empty hands, empty and bare. “I knew you’d be out soon. I knew.”

Robert’s eyes are wet now, and he dips his head. For a second he takes a breath, chin wobbling and making him hide again. Aaron’s hand is through his hair suddenly, combing through so delicately, and it’s this that he can’t really deal with.

He’s been here before; he’s had dreams where Aaron’s heart is locked, and he has the key, but it’s rusted away. It’s useless. He’s dealt with that, just about stomached the pain of it all but this is something he wasn’t ever able to contemplate. It was never something he thought.

“I dealt with it. The thought of seeing you.” Aaron’s voice is heavy with something, he feels tired suddenly and his hands slip from Robert as he crouches next to him. “Everyone was looking for you, Harry thought you went to join the circus.”

Robert feels something twist in him, his eyes droop and he feels like he can’t breathe under what he’s just heard.

Aaron laughs for the both of them, a tear down his face that he wipes away with the back of his hand. He squeezes his eyes shut, breathes in. “You’re not, are you?”

Robert’s shoulders relax and he holds his breath. “No.” He whispers. He looks down at his hands and there’s this heavy pause. “It’s different to the Cirque du Soleil, not as fancy.”

It feels like a damn breaks or something, nothing but softness seeps out and fills both of them with a sense of warmth that Robert never thought he’d have again. Aaron’s eyes are still so blue, their _so_ blue and he dips his head to laugh again.

Robert’s not sure how Aaron gets to laugh right now. He doesn’t understand but he doesn’t understand a lot of things. He’s at peace with that now. For now, Aaron’s eyes and the lines that fill space near them, are everything he can possibly bring himself to focus on.

“Were you looking for me too?” The trees seem to stand taller and yet bend down and crowd Robert at the exact same time. He watches, studying Aaron’s face as he pulls his face and then nods his head. “Why?”

Robert regrets the way it sounds, how he comes across as both confused and almost disgusted.

Aaron’s eyes are red again and he gulps. “You – I was scared you’d … you were out in the rain in the middle of the road.”

“The layby.” Robert sounds broken. He hears it in his voice and tries to make it go away but it doesn’t.

Aaron’s face changes colour, bright red fades and thins out to this white hollowness. “Robert.” He chews at his lip, again. Only this time it’s to stop himself from crying. It works. A bit.

Robert knows what he means but just saying his name. It means stop, it means “you’ll set me off” and it makes Robert time travel and arrive right back to over fourteen years ago.

“Didn’t think you’d look for me.” Robert whispers the words. “It’s not fair when you …”

“Hate ya?” Aaron says, and then he huffs, and rolls his eyes and makes it seem like all of this time hasn’t just happened and they’re living through the after effects of it all. “Couldn’t.” He shrugs, then winces. “How could I hate you? That don’t make any sense.” He shakes his head. “You’re you.”

Robert feels like he’s dreaming. He was lying before when he said he’d only dreamt of Aaron and the rusted key. On good days which lead to good nights, he would dream that everything simply went back to how it was when he was first taken away from everything he’s ever wanted. It was easy, and Aaron was his and it all just seemed to make sense.

It sort of does now, but Robert doesn’t dare to genuinely believe it until Aaron has that hand on his knee again and he’s forcing him to just look at him when he’s speaking.

“I’m not … who I was.”

It’s another dream, it’s Robert watching as people walked away from him, ignored him like he wasn’t really real until he realised that his face was blurred out into nothingness. He was nobody.

Aaron pulls the hand from Robert’s knee and digs out his phone. He holds it both hands, almost cradling it and Robert only looks when Aaron holds a hand over his. Robert looks at pictures, and pictures and pictures. He sees it’s an album, a lock symbol to it like it’s private or something and it causes all this sticky sense of shame and sadness to run through him until Aaron speaks.

“This idiot.”

Robert feels his heart double in size as he watches Aaron smile at the photos like it seeds a flurry of soft memories running through him. Robert, in his sorry state, is met with warmth for the first time in so long that it knocks him back for a second and he’s stunned into a silence.

“Aaron.” Robert says, and it’s his turn to say it. He hasn’t said his name in so long. Instead, he stared at pictures on a wall and knew that every single second saw them becoming older and the distance between reality and what he knew was stretching thinner and thinner. He doesn’t want to say how it feels to see that Aaron, with his private little album, experienced the exact same thing as he did in some way or another.

Aaron’s cheeks redden again. “I just …”

“You kept …”

Aaron’s phone hangs loose in his hand. “What else could I do?”

Robert’s stumped by that, the question filters through his brain.

“Forget me.” It spills out before he really understand it. He hears it back, almost on a loop really as Aaron looks away from him. He imagines that there’s day where Aaron has done just that. He thinks of the days that he hasn’t even entered Aaron’s head and he’s unsure of how he feels about it until Aaron looks at him.

“I still …” Aaron’s voice echoes, and the sounds of birds tweeting seem to make him almost naturally trail off so that he doesn’t continue what he said.

 _I still wanted to keep them_ ; Robert tells himself.

 _I still love you_ ; Aaron knows.

Robert breathes in as Aaron tilts his head.

“Please don’t run again. Don’t run away. I couldn’t …”

Aaron, and all the kindness he’s always had, is able to make everything seem quieter within moments. Robert hears his panic, and his sadness and the way it mixes together to form this ache inside the pair of them until Robert shakes his head and tells him that he won’t with just a look. A look Aaron reads, knows, reacts to with the sag to his shoulders.

For the first time since seeing Aaron today, he tries to wrap his head around how he must have felt to hear that Robert, his long-lost ex-husband, had been released from a tiny island only to be missing again mere hours later. Lost and alone and a stranger. A stranger.

But here’s here, and Robert’s sure he hates him a little but he’s here.

“I … I won’t go.” Robert says. “Not again.”

The look on Aaron’s face is almost everything and more. He savours it. He really does.

Aaron stares back, eyes warm and cold at the same time as he’s not sure what to do or say or act around Robert now that he knows he’s safe, and that he isn’t going anywhere.

“Good.” Aaron whispers, to himself, and to Robert, and to so much more too. Eventually, he stands, brushes at his knees and then clears his throat and reaches out for Aaron.

Robert thinks of the hand outstretched towards him; he thinks of a million questions that he should ask Aaron. He wonders and wonders for so long that he’s sure Aaron will pull his hand away and leave him where he is, leave him like Robert had to leave him all those years and years and years ago.

But he doesn’t. Aaron’s still there when he stops thinking about the steps he’ll have to take now that he isn’t where he was. He thinks of a time where his heart won’t hurt the way it does and seeing Aaron’s face won’t make him want to turn and hide and run. He thinks of saying a million apologies, through words and looks and a bunch of flowers to only make Aaron’s eyes widen in surprise.

For a second, he thinks of whether Aaron would still blush at it.

He hopes that hasn’t changed; he hopes so much hasn’t changed. It’s what scares him, makes this ripple of fear rush through him as he runs a hand through his hair and tightens his arms around his knees for a second before rising.

Rising, rising and rising.


End file.
